The Ithaca, NY location consists of three Research Management Units, the Plant, Soil and Nutrition Research Unit (PSNRU), the Biological Integrated Pest Management Research Unit (BIPMR), and the Plant-Microbe Interactions Research Unit (PMIRU). The research mission of the PSNRU is to improve food crop security and nutritional quality through an interdisciplinary approach integrating molecular biology, molecular genetics, physiology, biochemistry, & microbiology with bioinformatics & genomics approaches. Key components of the research include improving the nutritional quality and abiotic stress tolerance of food crops, development of tools to dissect complex traits in plants, and modeling molecular mechanisms of plant pathogenesis. The research mission of the BIPMR is to develop new innovative methods to protect crops from pests and diseases and develop crop production systems that improve crop yield and soil productivity. Key components of the research include host/plant resistance, fungal pathogens/antagonists of pests, organismal interference/manipulation, bioprocess development for natural pesticides, and cropping systems. The research mission of the Research Leader (PMIRU) is to elucidate the environmental conditions and genetic mechanisms controlling the expression of genes associated with plant-microbe interactions in general, and virulence-related genes in particular. Key components of the research include pathogen responses to environmental influences, discovery of novel regulatory elements involved in pathogenesis, and the integration of computation methods with molecular biology approaches.